The question “Will we die Christian Democrats?” raised by Giuseppe Vacca (in his book which I have not read but which I will certainly read) does not lend itself to an easy answer due to the vagueness of the reference. What does "Christian Democrats" mean for the purposes of this question? Because if it means De Gasperi, Vanoni, Moro, Don Sturzo (who moreover always refused to be called a Christian Democrat, wanting to remain popular) and in the final phase Rognoni and Martinazzoli, the powerful social thought that animated these men based on the Social Doctrine of the Church, the ability they have had to guide Italy on the path of reconstruction and within Europe, then the answer is: unfortunately no. And that regret emerges mentioned in Franco Locatelli's article on FIRSTonline on 4 September.
If, on the other hand, dying a Christian Democrat means Andreotti's cynicism and logic of pure power, the foolishness of that eminent Christian Democrat, still alive, who at the beginning of the 90s asked me ironically: "Do you really think that a high public debt is it bad for Italy?”, the dishonesty of so many politicians and public administrators who, for money, have massacred Italy, then the answer is still negative. But without regret. In this case the answer is negative, in the sense that the new alleged Christian Democrats, the Lettas, the Renzis, the Alfanos, will never be able to equal their masters in evil.
Christian Democracy died definitively, for lack of thought, when it was liquidated by the Christian Democrats themselves in the 90s. The last true Christian Democrat was Silvio Berlusconi. But it died a second time when the hope of a revival of that thought that sustained it died, under the blows of Ruini's Church which suffocated everything in pure power and electoral schemes, breaking that separation between the civil-political sphere and the religious which from Don Sturzo onwards was one of the pillars of Christian Democrat thought.
In the meantime everything has changed. The left has placed itself in a subordinate position to neoliberal thought, giving birth to, as they have been called, the "two right". The Luigi Einaudi of Lessons on Social Politics (1944) is, to use their language, much more leftist than any leader of the DS and Pd and any trade union leader of our time. So today the real question to ask would be: will we all die neoliberals?
The right is broken. The centre-left interclass block survives only as a slave to Berlusconi's worst Peronist instincts and messages. We have to redo everything. But even the compasses have gone crazy and it will certainly not be the Alfanos (“eine Marionette” as the Süddeutsche Zeitung called them) to put them back in order. I also agree with those who ask for distinctions. There is no relationship between Alfano and Renzi. Renzi represents a "discontinuity" aimed at both the PD and Italy. Whether it is true discontinuity (that is, based on a thought and a new social block) or pure adventurism remains to be seen. Ultimately, perhaps, the simple truth is that we will all die Peronists forever. Like the Argentines.
